Monday, February 7, 2011

Twisted Trikes

The object is to build the most outrageous vehicle on the street. We have exceeded that goal. There is nothing on the street to match the performance or look of our vehicle. It shares the acceleration of the fastest sports bikes and only weighs a little bit more. The front end is all race car. It has rack and pinion steering, wildwood front brakes, and adjustable coilover shocks. The cockpit features a 6 point harness, form fitting seat, 6 speed sequential shifter, momo F1 wheel, and full Honda instrumentation.
The rear end is all business from a Honda 954 CBR RR. The engine is a liquid cooled 4 cylinder that features: fuel injection, rave valve and 154 hp @ 11250 RPM. The aluminum swing arm, rear wheel, and brake are all from the Honda.
The frame is custom made DOM and Chromemoly. Everything is tig welded and meets SCCA specs. The body parts are made from carbon fiber and Kevlar. The aluminum radiator is located in the left side pod. The aluminum fuel tank is located under the seat.
The 3 wheel car drives like a race car. It has massive power over steer when you want it, or very tame and neutral for casual driving. Let me just say it is very hard to dive this car casual. The car accelerates just like a sport bike, it is lighting fast. The steering is very precise and there are plenty of, and very much needed, brakes to bring it to a halt. It is so much fun to drive we find ourselves demonstrating the car to just about anybody who asks to see it start up.
The car took 6 months of spare time to build, and needed very little testing and adjustments to make it user friendly. One thing we overlooked until a week before the test day was the motorcycle rear tire. The reverse trike needed a car rear tire. To our surprise it was a bit of a challenge to find one that fits the motorcycle rear rim. We did locate one, but it didn’t make it in time for the initial test. The motorcycle rear tire only works for casual driving and as I stated before it is hard to drive this insane driving machine casual. The car rear tire makes a huge difference in handling and acceleration, although it is still very easy to burn the back tire if you want to. With the motorcycle tire you had to slip the clutch with almost no accelerator, or it would just instantly spin.
Reaction to our trike is overwhelming. We have taken it to bike nights and car shows. It is always a crowd favorite. Imagine the speed of a sport bike and the handling of a race car; it’s the best of both worlds.

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